High Road Cookbook A primer on building a 'moral economy' BY DAN CAROL They say that too many cooks spoil the broth, but when it comes to baking up strong local economies, I am here to say the maxim is wrong. There's an effective new cookbook for political and economic progress emerging across the country, and it's time to widely share the best recipes. Paving the high road is especially important given new interest in the progressive community around finding smart strategies to "fight Wal-Mart," grow new local leaders like the right wing did, and have a stronger "progressive narrative." The high road recipe set — which includes living wage campaigns, Apollo clean energy strategies, community health, high-speed Internet access and much, much more — helps fill in many of these gaps. So what's the "high road" exactly? Well, in contrast to the low-road of low wages, lousy benefits and high pollution, high road economics puts more green in worker's pockets and is greener to the environment. Premier chefs of high road thinking include Los Angeles' Anthony Thigpenn, former UAW economist Dan Luria, Working Partnerships USA founder Amy Dean and the University of Wisconsin's Joel Rogers, who directs HighRoadNow.org, linking a multi-state coalition of think and do tanks. Dr. Rogers puts it this way: "High road economic development strategies promote high-quality jobs under competitive conditions, environmental sustainability, corporate accountability, and community revitalization. Our approach runs counter to the conventional model of economic growth, which typically ignores job quality, erodes the tax base, harms the environment, lacks accountability to broader community interests and is unfriendly to labor." Now that we know what it is, how exactly do we start down the high road — toward what Berkeley's George Lakoff and others call the "moral economy"? Actually the steps are pretty straightforward. Run a living wage campaign, dammit. If you haven't run a living wage campaign in your community in the last six years, start there before trying any other recipe from the list below. Minimum wage and living wage campaigns are the initial staple for high road cooking. If we can pass a minimum wage increase in Florida in 2004 with 72 percent support, then believe me, you can pass it anywhere (and we have in over 120 communities). More importantly, the cross-cutting alliances we see develop in these campaigns — between labor, faith, urban and other constituencies — create serious political yeast for the next round of cooking. (See www.livingwagecampaign.org) Choose a tasty recipe for your community. Once you've run and won a living wage effort, we're ready to crack open the next chapter of the high road cookbook. It is important to recognize that there is no single recipe for getting there. Like cooking at altitude, you'll need to change the recipe mix depending on local conditions and unique opportunities (for example, when a fired-up mayor or county commissioner wants to carry the ball). • Apollo/clean energy: I am a co-founder of The Apollo Alliance and I am clearly biased, but certainly new partnerships between labor-business, rural-urban and environmental communities are sprouting up all over America on the potential for wind energy investments, biofuels, end user efficiency jobs and more. Check out Apollo's regional policy center (www.apolloalliance.org/regional_projects/)for ideas. • Smart growth: Until recently, state economic development has often boiled down to insane corporate subsidies as states compete for new plants to re-locate or stay (see www.cfed.org). • Big cable or community Internet? Comcast and Verizon can charge exorbitant rates for high speed Internet access and decide who gets to be on their network or we can provide it at lower rates by having cities install whatever new technology comes along (see www.freepress.netand www.ctcnet.org). • Community health clinics: I find the work of Ellen Friedman and her colleagues at the Community Clinics Initiative (www.communityclinics.org)to be amazing. While helping to address health care access for low-income populations, these clinics also are becoming community centers for addressing a whole host of economic and social challenges, and a place to pilot test new models for community organizing. Franchising the cookbook. We've been talking about arming progressive state legislators with model laws for years. Now it's time to do that and more — to support state treasurers, mayors and all levels of political leadership who want to travel the high road and find meaningful alternatives to a Wal-Mart economy. The bottom line: No one proposal, place or person is gonna be able to do it all. No way. The key will be recipe sharing and networking — and intelligently spreading around resources to support the smart folks out there who already pioneering in the space. Then back it all up with a smart network of regional nerve centers, national two-way communications and tool sheds to service it all at scale. We especially need to be careful not to over-invest in Wal-Mart fights and under-invest in efforts to offer success stories that show how we can do better than big box stores in farm fields. To do all that, an outside network analyst like Green Media Toolshed's Marty Kearns might be good to bring to the table — someone who understands network construction and isn't invested in any of the old politics. Dan Carol of Eugene is a political consultant. You can read Carol's full Kumbaya Dammit rap for progressive reform at www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030331&s=carol       Preschool in Trouble Little French School needs a new home. BY SHARON SLESS There is a valiant effort going on in south Eugene right now to save a small but significant school that has been an important part of the community's early childhood educational offerings for many years. The Little French School, a non-profit organization, was founded 20 years ago as the Eugene International Preschool and Kindergarten by Katherine Parrish, a French woman who has since left the community. At the school's inception, it was housed within the O'Hara School building and both French and Spanish were offered. The Spanish program was later dropped and the school was relocated to the Pearl Buck Center at the end of West Amazon 17 years ago. The school has been operating successfully since then in close proximity to the French immersion elementary program offered at Charlemagne Fox Hollow. Just a few weeks ago the school was given two-months notice to find a new location, as the Pearl Buck Center now needs the space to expand its own programs. This gives us a very short timeline in which to find a new home for our school. We currently have eight dedicated full- and part-time employees whose livelihoods depend on the continuation of the school. We already have 50 families enrolled for next school year who are depending on us to provide the French immersion education they have chosen to pursue for their children. The curriculum offered at the Little French School is unique in that it includes a program of language immersion in a nurturing atmosphere for children at an age when the acquisition of a foreign language is most natural and most easily absorbed. Along with the language component is the accompanying exposure to the diverse cultures of the world in general and the French-speaking world in particular. Our immersion program seeks to sharpen a child's overall intellectual abilities by using a second language as a medium of instruction and to help the children develop their cultural awareness. Unlike most other countries in the world, preschools in the U.S. receive no governmental subsidies or support and rely solely on tuition to keep the schools running. An occasional fundraiser helps us to meet operating costs. Despite the tight budget constraints, we have been able to extend scholarships to families in the community who might otherwise be unable to meet the cost of tuition. We work closely with EC Cares to ensure that any of our students with disabilities are accommodated. With the July 1 deadline quickly approaching, we now find ourselves in a state of crisis and are actively looking for both temporary and permanent solutions to this dilemma. The ideal short-term solution could be a rental that would fill our minimum requirements of three classrooms, three restrooms, office space and access to a playground, kitchen and gymnasium, as well as available parking. We are appealing to the general public and parents of past and present students whose children may have benefited from our program. Any and all help would be appreciated, whether it is in the form of donations, investments, professional services or suggestions. We need our community's support now more than ever. Direct donations may be made to our account, The Little French School, Inc., at Oregon Community Credit Union (account number 465112). Please contact the school at 345-3818 with any questions or ideas that you might have. Sharon Sless is a kindergarten teacher at the Little French School.
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